CAPTAIN JUDY
"Gee, Judy, but you can sail a boat."
Judy with the salt breeze blowing her hair back from her face, with her
hand on the tiller, and with her eager eyes sweeping the surface of the
moonlighted waters, smiled a little.
"I ought to," she declared, "father taught me. He said that he didn't
have a son, so he intended that I should know as much as a boy about
such things."
"It's mighty windy weather." Tommy was hunched up in the bottom of the
boat--and his face had the woebegone look of the inexperienced sailor.
"It's going to be windier," said Judy, wisely, "it's coming now. Look
at those clouds."
Back of the moon a heavy bank of clouds was crested with white, and the
waters of the bay heaved sullenly.
Tommy, ignorant little landlubber that he was, began to wish that he
had stayed at home, but Judy was exalted, uplifted by the thought of a
coming battle with wind and waves. She had fought them so often in the
little white boat, but one thing she forgot, that she was not as strong
as she had been, and that Tommy was not as helpful as her father.
The start had been very exciting. Judy had pretended to read in the
library, and little Anne had gone to bed, and then when the house was
still she had crept out, and had met Tommy, and together they had
gotten "The Princess" under sail.
But more than once that day Judy's heart had failed her. The Cause had
looked rather silly on second thoughts, and Tommy was _so_
commonplace--but, oh, well, she had promised, and that was the end of
it.
Tommy was dreadfully awkward about a boat, too. In spite of his
eagerness for a life on the ocean wave, he had never had any practical
training and Judy grew impatient more than once at the slow way in
which he followed out her orders.
"I would do it myself," she scolded finally, "only I must save my
strength for the trip back. I shall be all alone then, you know."
Tommy sat down suddenly. "Gracious," he gasped, "I never thought of
that. Oh, we will have to go back. You can't take this boat home
alone, Judy."
Judy's head went up. "I am captain of this ship, Tommy Tolliver," she
declared, "and I am going to sail into port and put you ashore. Then I
shall do as I like."
"Aw--" said Tommy, appalled at this display of nautical knowledge,
"aw--all right, Captain Judy."
The wind came as Judy had said it would, filling the little sail until
it looked like a white flower, and carrying "The Princess" along at a
pace that made Tommy feel weak and faint.
"Isn't it fine," cried Judy, leaning forward, and drinking in the
strong air with delight. "Isn't it glorious, Tommy?"
"Yes," said Tommy, doubtfully. He was pale, and presently he lay down
in the bottom of the boat.
"Suck a lemon," suggested Judy, practically, "there are some in that
little locker," and after following her advice, Tommy recovered
sufficiently to sit up, and in the lulls of the gale he and Judy
shrieked at each other, and sang songs of the sea.
They ate a little lunch, intermittently--a bite of sandwich while Tommy
pulled at the ropes or adjusted the sail, or a wing of chicken as Judy
swung the boat with her head to the wind. It was all very exciting and
Judy forgot care and the worried hearts that she had left behind, and
Tommy, reckless in a new-found courage, felt that he was a true sailor
and a son of the sea.
But as the night wore on, and the wind settled into a steady blow, it
took all Judy's science and Tommy's strength to keep the little boat in
her course. The waves ran higher and higher, and Judy grew quiet, and
her face was pale with fatigue.
Tommy began to have doubts. A life on the ocean wave wasn't all that
it was cracked up to be, and anyhow, Judy was only a girl!
"How long before we get there," he shouted amid the tumult.
"We ought to reach the Point in a little while," said Judy, "but--but I
am not quite sure where we are, Tommy. I have always kept within sight
of land before--"
There was no land to be seen now. The moon was hidden by the clouds,
and on each side of them black water stretched out to meet black sky,
broken only by leaping lengths of white foam.
But they were not fated to reach the Point that night, for the wind
changed, and in spite of all efforts to keep on their way, the little
boat was blown farther and farther out into the great, wide waters of
the bay.
"Is there any danger?" questioned Tommy as the foam boiled up on each
side of the boat, drenching both himself and Judy, whose face, white as
a pearl, showed through the gloom.
But Judy did not answer at once. She waited until she could make
herself heard in a lull of the wind, and then she admitted, "We shall
have to stay out all night, I am afraid."
"All night," gasped Tommy. "Oh, Judy, ain't it awful."
"No," said Judy, calmly, "not if we are not silly and afraid."
"Oh, I'm not afraid," swaggered Tommy, "only I wish we hadn't come," he
ended, weakly, as the boat swooped down into the trough of a wave, and
then rose high in the air.
"You should have told me it wasn't safe," he complained presently, "you
knew it was going to storm, didn't you?"
"Well, I like that--" Judy stared at him. "Oh, try to be a man,
Tommy, if you are a coward."
Tommy winced. "I'm not afraid," he defended.
"Perhaps not," said Judy, slowly, "but--but--if you had been a man you
would have said, 'I am sorry I asked you to bring me, Judy.'"
"But--"
"Oh, we won't argue." Judy raised her voice as another blast came.
"I--I'm too tired to--to argue--Tommy--"
She swayed back and forth, holding on to the tiller weakly.
"I--I am so--tired," she tried to laugh, but her face was ghastly.
"I--I guess I wasn't very nice just now, Tommy,--but I--am--so tired.
You will have to steer, Tommy."
"But I don't know how," blubbered Tommy.
"You will just have to do it. I can't sit up--" and Judy tumbled down
into the bottom of the boat, completely worn out from the unaccustomed
strain.
Tommy whimpered in a frightened monotone as he grasped the tiller with
inexperienced hands. What if Judy were dead? What--? "I'll never do
it again. I'll never run awa--" but Judy did not hear, for she lay
with her eyes shut in a sort of stupor in the bottom of the boat.
She was waked by a bump and the wash of the waves over the boat.
"We've struck somewhere, Tommy," she shrieked.
"Oh, oh," howled Tommy, "we'll drown, Judy!"
"We won't," she said, tensely. "Hush, Tommy. _Hush_--do you hear?
Can you swim?"
"No," and he clutched hold of her as another wave broke over the boat.
"There's a life-belt here somewhere," and Andy threw things out in
frantic haste. "Here. Take hold of it, Tommy."
"But--what are you going to do?"
"I can swim. Don't mind about me, and if you keep quiet I will tow you
in if we are near land."
She said it quietly, but in her heart she wondered where she would tow
him.
"Don't take hold of me," she insisted, peremptorily, as she felt Tommy
grab her arm, "or we shall both go under--oh--"
In that moment the boat keeled over, and when Judy came to the top of
the water, she knew that between her and death in the green depths
beneath, there was nothing but the strength of her frail limbs.
"Tommy," she called, as soon as she could get the salt water out of her
mouth.
"Here," came shiveringly over the face of the waters.
"Are you all right?"
"No, no, it's horrid. Oh, I wish I was home--I wish I was
home"--wailed Tommy, clinging to the belt for dear life.
The clouds had parted and one little star showed in the blackness, in
the dim light Judy could just see Tommy's eyes glowing from out of his
pallid face.
"He is afraid," she thought to herself, curiously. She was not afraid.
She had never been afraid of the water--poor Tommy.
She felt strangely weak, however, and all at once there came to her the
knowledge that she could not keep up any longer. The strength of the
old days was not hers--and she was tired--so tired--
She caught hold of the life-belt, and as she did so Tommy screamed,
"Don't, Judy. It won't hold us both. Don't--"
"He is afraid," she thought again, pityingly, "and I am not, and we
can't both hold on to that belt--"
Tommy babbled crazily, bemoaning his danger, sobbing now and then--but
Judy was very still.
"I can't keep up much longer. I mustn't try to hold on with Tommy. He
is afraid--poor Tommy--" she looked up at the little star, "and I'm not
afraid--I love the sea," she thought, dreamily. Then for one moment
she came out of her trance.
"Tommy, Tommy!" she cried sharply.
"What?"
"Don't let go of the belt. Hold on, no matter how tired you are. In
the morning--some one--will save you--"
"But you--wh-wh-at are you going to do, Judy?"
"Oh, I--?" she laughed faintly. "Oh, I shall be all right--all right,
Tommy," and her voice died away in an awful silence.